Los Angeles Times article of January 7th, 2009 regarding baby Susie Pena and the case by her mother, Lorena Lopez, against the Los Angeles Police Department

Los Angeles Times article of January 7th, 2009 regarding baby Susie Pena and the case by her mother, Lorena Lopez, against the Los Angeles Police Department

The article of the Los Angeles Times brings to light the extensive efforts of the LAPD in trying to get the Los Angeles County Coroner to change his opinion about the cause of death of baby Suzie Pena. The shooting of the baby occurred on July 10, 2005 and the efforts of the LAPD began shortly after the shooting and went into 2006.

The LAPD did not like the Opinion of Los Angeles County Coroner that:
“The cause of death is a high velocity rifle wound of the head which is a distant wound fired into the decedent’s face near the left eye.”

The signigicance of this Opinion of the Coroner is that SWAT officers were the only ones with rifles on July 10, 2005 and a “distant wound” means it was not a “contact shot” of the father. In 2005 and 2006 the LAPD was attempting to establish that the father had used a 9 millimeter gun and had fired at close range, a “contact shot”, and had killed the baby.

Upon failing in that endeavor, the LAPD then went on a nationwide search to find a Pathologist that would “undermine” the Coroner’s conclusion as to the cause of death of Suzie Pena. The LAPD did find a medical doctor, William R. Oliver, who concluded that “There is little or no good evidence that the wound is from a contact or near contact wound from a 9mm handgun, and good evidence that it is from a distant high velocity small caliber weapon.”

Today, January 7, 2009, Police Chief William Bratton is angry at the Los Angeles Times article and Chief Bratton has lashed out at the Los Angeles Times as seen in these television excerpts.

Article written by Luis A. Carrillo, Esq., attorney for the family of baby Susie Pena.

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